


You Want To Live (When Life Is Achingly Unfair)

by AetherAria



Series: Second Citadel Mythology AU [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (though there will NOT be relief until later chapters), Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Orpheus/Eurydice/Hades, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death, Death but it's Weird when the afterlife is a place you can just Go, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), Singing, sir angelo isn't mentioned by name but You Know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2020-10-27 06:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20755796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Damien’s beloved dies in spring. His flower dies, among flowers. This cruelty is not without beauty.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Orpheus/Eurydice/Hades au that I've been thinking about since before I even started writing Penumbra fanfic. Please hang in there with me. This is... very different from my usual style.
> 
> Title from the song Don't Give Up by The Whitest Boy Alive.

Damien’s beloved dies in spring. His flower dies, among flowers. This cruelty is not without beauty.

Damien weeps. He rages. He barters with empty air, beats his fists bloody among lilies in the grass, howls his despair. He cannot _understand_.

Damien is a poet. Damien knows how stories are meant to go, knows the flow of meeting and curiosity and affection and settling comfort and long long years of peace that should follow. Damien the poet and his clever, keen-eyed betrothed are meant to be in the midst of a beginning, in a place of promise.

Endings come whenever they please, Damien learns, and then he weeps violently enough to make himself ill.

The flowers for their wedding are given new purpose. The ceremony shifts. The almost-widower is expected to speak, and when he is led with strong gentle hands to the front of the congregation he opens his mouth and for long, long minutes he fully believes his gift and his tongue and his own heart have died as well, have crawled in beside Rilla’s motionless, vacant form to be laid to rest.

Words, on their own, cannot carry her weight.

So, Damien sings.

If there are words among the melody, he does not remember them. All in attendance weep, as he weeps. All grieve, as he grieves. Like ribs cracked, like poison, like stillness within. He is led away again. He is caressed with words of comfort. With praise, for his weaver's gift, spinning despair into melodic silk. He cannot speak to answer.

His mourning song is begun, his love pouring out from within him, and it will not stop, now. Not until every drop of lamentation is wrung out. Even with his mouth pressed closed, he cannot help but hum.

Damien languishes. Cannot remember hunger, cannot remember thirst. Cannot remember the straining of the sapling towards the sun. Remembers only the weight of Rilla’s smile, and the memory is as stone. Heavy, unmoving, unchanging, until the (_distant, distant, still please distant_) time when it will erode as well.

No other weight can Damien bear. Not even his own hands. Not even his own head, which bows his neck like the weakest of willows.

Blessed is he, then, with friendship bright and strong enough to lift such weight for him. If friendship need weep to be beside him as he croons and keens, friendship will never, never complain. Friendship will lift sweet water to his lips when they crack from his withering song. Friendship will carry him, feed him, sit beside him and mourn and love and mourn, and believe in change and light and sunrise soft and sweet enough until Damien at last lifts his head again to see it too. He sees the sunlight, sees that love is still here, though it is not the love that pulls his soul from his bones, though it is not the love that pours unceasing from his lips. He begins to play the part of the living again, feeds and cares for the body which still lives, to honor the sacrifices of his friend. To allow his companion, at last, to relent in his vigil.

Damien cannot cease his song, but he will remember, in time, to be half in love with life, for all it reminds him of the woman who once lived and loved him. He sees her smile in the waves, feels her touch in rainstorm gusts, hears her laughter in all laughter, and he _aches_. He is haunted by life that echoes and remembers the beauty and movement that once was his beloved. He is haunted by these pieces of her that transmute and shift, that move on while she cannot. While _he_ cannot.

Damien falls half in love with death, as well. For it is death who embraces his flower now, and they who love Amaryllis must themself be lovely in turn. She touches everything with light; even death. Even grief.

He is more and less aware. More aware of change. Less aware of time. More attuned to decay, to erosion, to endings. Less aligned with his own body. The world changes, all inevitability running like a river, time unspooling each thread one by one, and all of life is change-

Amaryllis has ceased to change.

The dead are only ever still.

Damien sings, notes that move and flow as time does, notes that slide in subtle knives up his throat but never, ever stop, and the grief within him becomes grief without him, curling the tops of grass and summoning the keening howls of distant wolves. Her death is a living thing, his song a cloak whose hood shades his eyes and trails behind him, touching all.

He wanders, rather than allowing his misery to pool in one place, rather than allowing his pain to fester in the fields of his home. He wanders, and takes his sorrow with him, painting gray across the land.

He wanders, he sings, and rivers flow faster as he passes, tears of the mountains following him down. A copse of dryads wilt and weep with his passing, begging for relief at his heel, and he smiles sadly and quickens his pace, though he cannot put a stopper to his song. The stones shiver underfoot. The earth groans with mourning. The sky cracks, and roils, and pours.

He sings. He sings. Grief, and love, and every way he is changing and unchanging without her. He sings.

Once, his songs were sung in duet. He forgets where harmonies once lived, and he grieves for that as well.

Damien sings. The world listens. Damien yearns, and in some small way Amaryllis lives in echo as the world yearns in his wake.

Helios comes to him, eventually, wearing the face of his friend. Else his friend is sunlight itself and never thought it bore mentioning. The god embraces him, and Damien weeps for comfort, weeps as he did on the very first day, weeps as he sings his every fear and pain and plea, and the god weeps with him. The god weeps with him, but nonetheless Helios smiles when he leans close enough to whisper in Damien’s ear.

Hope is a flower which blooms slowly, and the god is already gone before Damien understands the gift he has been given.

Hope blooms slow, but it also blooms bright and hardy, and Damien knows at last what he must do.

Damien sings, and Damien descends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh please hang in there. It will not always be this sad. I'm jakkubrat on tumblr if you are compelled to Scream at me. <3
> 
> Also I'm incredibly nervous about this one so any and all comments would be wildly appreciated! Thank you for reading I love you!!!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is natural, for a doctor to have a complicated relationship with Death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This just in: I fucking love Rilla.

Lord Arum, he who rules the realm of the dead, greets each of his new charges as they arrive. This is deserved.

All is still, in death. Time is… distant. It brushes by, tickles at the corners, but it does not impede his methodical work. Time is distant, and therefore he never needs worry if he has enough of it to spend on each new soul. He guides. He understands. He helps, when such opportunities present themselves.

His visage is not comforting. It is not meant to be. Death is only ever itself, all complication and incomprehension. His visage is not comforting, but that does not mean that _he_ should not be, himself. Lord Arum greets those who come to rest, and he and his realm ease the difficulty of their transitions, as they are able.

His charges may take as long as each requires, to reconcile their life, to reconcile their death. Arum understands that difficulty. He has seen countless causes, countless cruelties of humanity and godkind alike, seen murder and mistake and malady, seen suffering and seen moments gone so quick they may be missed in a breath. Even a more gentle death can take effort to move on from, if the life left behind is dearly missed, if the person were not ready to leave. Arum guides each as they need, or allows his realm itself to guide, when he knows his own hand, the hand of a god, would be unwelcome, or intrusive.

There is time enough for this, for every patient comfort.

For if time is a river, unceasing and relentless in the realm above, then death is a swamp: wide waiting shallows, subtle eddies, echoes, swirling currents, the air as thick as the loam and water below. Stillness. Calm. Arum rules this still calmness, _his_ still calmness. He rules it, and he loves it, and it loves him in return. Among the gods his station may not be coveted, may not be lauded, but he is useful. He is needed. He performs the tasks that are required, to keep the flow of life as the universe intends, and he _excels_ at his duties.

Some faces, some souls are more familiar when they come to join his subjects at last. Some have brushed close to death many times in their lives, and Arum notes these well. Some come close time and time again, a dance with a partner they do not see. Some never bear the reality of his presence in their lives until the very moment of their last breath.

Some, in the style of his newest subject, he is familiar with in a way that is… painful.

He cannot afford this pain, of course. It does not befit him to care, to _mourn_ in the fashion of mortals, when a soul joins him at a time that seems unfair. Arum attends the transition, but he rules the _after_, not the moment itself. Death is a calm place. A place of rest and finality. Dying, as it were, is chaotic. Unpredictable. It follows no logic, no reason, no rules save one: that dying is final. Dying is the river that may only be crossed once. Arum rules his shore, and he may disagree with the schedule of certain crossings, but his place is not in that decision.

Arum disagrees with the schedule of this crossing, certainly. He disagrees, but he may do no more than give himself a moment of quiet sorrow before he goes to perform his tasks.

  
  


Rilla wakes. Rilla will never wake again. The two facts coincide, the two banks of the river each obeying their own rules.

Her parents do not greet her as she rises, and she finally knows with certainty that they still live. Her relief is less than she expected.

Death is less than she expected.

She observes. Herself, first.

She does not breathe. Her heart does not beat. She needs not even blink. She is preserved, one last moment stretching out, a prism through which she can view her life backwards, the last change her body ever bore tattooing her ankle in twin pinpricks. She remembers her end. So very, very simple. Rustle, hiss, strike, fall.

Her parents do not greet her, and Damien still survives (_I would follow, o I would follow-_), but there is nonetheless someone beside her as she rises to awareness, her toes in the soft silt of the riverbank.

She knows him. She knows him instantly, without thought. Of course she does: Rilla is a healer, after all, and he looms always in the corners of her patient’s rooms. She has been setting her stubbornness against him since she was barely grown.

Death greets her, and his form is ancient and inhuman and wild. Clawed, and fanged, and scaled. Impossible, like something _cursed_. Or-

Not cursed. Only beyond and outside life as she has known it. He is death. It’s perfectly natural that he seems incomprehensible.

Rilla turns towards him, and he watches her with patient eyes, eyes the precise color of the flowers scattered across the field in which her time among the living ended.

“How… how long have I…” Rilla trails off, her own voice sounding strange and muffled, here, and the Lord of Death shakes his head.

“Time is only an idea, Amaryllis,” he says, his voice all fallen leaves. “We are beyond that, here.”

“That’s not a particularly useful answer,” she responds, and he blinks. She has surprised him. Surprised death, which is gratifying in a strange sort of way.

“I apologize,” he says, still soft. “I have no other answer to give. Time no longer matters to you.”

“But it still matters to-”

Rilla feels an ache, a pull, like the rush of the dying still upon her.

(_paint joy even in the pale light of grief / for the flower which blooms in darkness / remains still a flower_)

She presses a hand over her unbeating heart, her unbreathing chest. “To Damien,” she finishes quietly. “It matters to him. How long has he been alone? Is he- is he safe?”

“He is not among my subjects.” The deity assures her. “Not yet.”

“How long has he been _alone_?” Rilla repeats, and the Lord of Death drops his violet eyes from her.

“Any answer I give will leave you unsatisfied, Amaryllis.”

“Why are you _here_, if you can’t even answer a question as simple as that?”

His tail twitches, his jaw tightening, and Rilla takes some measure of satisfaction in that.

“I apologize,” he says again, further dryness slipping into his tone. “Such a question may seem simple to you; I understand your perspective, but time does not pass here as you know it. For your Damien-”

(_the dead are only ever still_)

He pauses. Rilla presses her hand over her heart with just barely more pressure.

“Not yet a year, perhaps, as he passes through it. That time is not set, however, Amaryllis. Not from where we stand. This realm merely glances at such measures. It is malleable, how our perspectives interact.”

Not a year, but it must be close enough to that amount for the God to pluck that measure as his metric. So long- so long for Damien to be alone…

“That still doesn’t make any sense,” she says, eventually, because it is true.

The Lord of Death sighs, a withering sound, and Rilla realizes that she cannot observe the space she currently occupies. There is a fog, not something extant, not something she feels she could _touch_, but this realm is dreamlike and unmemorable besides the God in front of her and the river at her back.

“I will not apologize a third time,” he says. “I will answer any questions you may have, as I am so able. You are now among my subjects, and I serve you as I serve this realm, but there are answers I cannot give. Your irritation with that limitation will not change it.”

Her anger feels like a curl of smoke, hard to grasp, though she certainly makes an attempt. Her hands are cold, but she clenches them into fists at her sides. "Well, _Lord of Death_, I certainly beg your pardon. Considering how long I've been fighting with you, I'm sure seeing me here is emotionally vexing." She grins precisely like the viper which cut her line, both venom and glee. "I'm not in your _way_ anymore, but now you have to _see_ me."

The Lord of Death tilts his head, staring at her for an immeasurable moment, and then it bursts from him in a laugh, wild with surprise. She is surprised, as well. When this deity laughs, all brightens around her like the flickering of lightning.

"I believe you have misunderstood, Amaryllis. Fighting _me_? Oh, oh certainly not. Death, Amaryllis- I have stood close beside you often enough, that much is true, but it has never been _death_ whom you have fought. Your bitter rivals are pestilence, violence, plague, and misfortune. You make such forces _quake_."

"... What?"

"To death you have been a companion. You have been an ally."

"I am _not_ an ally of _death_."

He pauses, his violet gaze upon her going oddly soft, oddly fond. "You are wrong, Amaryllis. You have only ever remained a friend to death. Graceful death. Kind death. Death at its natural moment." He smiles, and there is an ease to the inhuman curve of it. "Whether you have known it or not, we have been acquainted for some time already."

Rilla contemplates that, and he is patient as she does. “I knew who you were when I saw you,” she murmurs. “You were familiar.”

“You have passed many into my care with compassion, Amaryllis, and kept many, many more from crossing at times that would have been cruel. Your own passing at this time is… regrettable.”

Rilla laughs, a light sort of noise, and it does not echo here. It falls muffled, the strange fog of this place swallowing the sound. The Lord of Death responds, regardless, his lips parting and showing the sharpness of his teeth, his eyes widening and showing the dilating angles of the violet.

“_Regrettable_,” she echoes, and she is not even bitter about it. “Do gods usually regret?”

“No,” he says, simple and without pause. “No, we do not.”

The quiet of this place, without even the measured beat of her own heart, makes it difficult for Rilla to say how long a pause passes, after that. Rilla does not need to breathe. She inhales, regardless, so she may sigh a steadying breath.

“Yeah, well.” She looks down at her hands, stained green at the fingertips from the herbs she had been picking. “I regret it too, Lord of Death.”

He stares at her, and even in their inhumanity she can see some strange measure of pain in his eyes.

“Come,” he says, his rough voice muffled and soft as he lifts a clawed hand towards her. “Walk with me, Amaryllis.”

“Why?”

His lip curls at her question, and she thinks it might be a smile. “You cannot remain forever with your heels in those waters, Amaryllis. You deserve more peace than that.”

Soft mud between her toes, the pull of running water on her heel like the clear note of a flute.

(_weeping of the wilds follow me down, follow me down / follow her down / feed each river and flow into the last_)

There are tears in Rilla’s eyes, and she does not quite understand why.

“Not yet,” she says. She needs to close her eyes, then, against the sympathy she can see on his face as he lowers his hand again. “I’m not… I’m not ready, just yet.”


End file.
